Set 15 years after a mysterious electrical failure has sent
mankind scurrying for bows, arrows and, apparently, stashed-away
skinny jeans, “Revolution” follows the heedless path of
“Invasion,” “Terra Nova” and “FlashForward” seeking to become
the next “Lost.”

“Revolution” would seem to have a better chance than most,
if only for its pedigree. Created by Eric Kripke
(“Supernatural”), the show is coproduced by “Lost” mastermind
J.J. Abrams.

But the pilot -- directed by Jon Favreau, and the only
episode available for review -- consigns “Revolution” closer to
the heap of short-lived wannabes.

The power outage that provides the high concept of
“Revolution” raises questions both intentional (was it an
accident? who’s responsible?) and not (what, besides “The Hunger
Games,” could account for humanity’s rediscovered passion for
bows and arrows? And who let the gym-bodied cool kids grab all
the snug henley shirts while the extras seem dressed for “Little
House on the Prairie?”)

Hunky Brother

Tracy Spiridakos plays teenage heroine Charlie leading a
small band of anti-Militia rebels through ruined America in
search of her kidnapped, asthmatic but hunky brother Danny
(Graham Rogers).

Joining the hunt is the siblings’ estranged, cynical Uncle
Miles (a miscast Billy Burke, from the “Twilight” films). Miles
is meant to be this show’s answer to Sawyer, of “Lost,” with a
dash of Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine from “Casablanca.” But no
amount of choreographed swashbuckling can toughen Burke’s Sears-model vibe.

Miles apparently has some backstory with Militia baddies Tom
Neville (Giancarlo Esposito) and General Monroe (David Lyons),
and flashbacks might spark some intrigue.

But “Revolution” gets off to a slow start. Kripke brings the
hard-bodied teenage angst of “Supernatural” but forgets that
show’s wit.

Abandoned, too, are the mystical meanderings of “Lost,” a
defendable choice that nonetheless leaves “Revolution” looking
like bottom-drawer outlines for further tales of “The Others.”
If a change is gonna come, it better come soon.

‘Civil War’

If we’ve learned anything from PBS Civil War documentaries,
it’s that soldiers on both sides of the Mason-Dixon could write
a darn fine letter.

“My grave will be marked so that you may visit it if you
desire to do so,” penned a dying boy whose battlefield wounds
don’t seem to have interfered with his eloquence.

From those letters home to the elegiac fiddles and famous-actor voiceovers, much seems familiar in documentarian Ric
Burns’s “Death and the Civil War,” a de facto addendum to “The
Civil War,” the seminal 1990 series that Burns coproduced with
director/brother Ken Burns.

But if the entrenched style flirts with self-parody, the
film remains, in the end, vital and moving.

Based on historian and Harvard president Drew Gilpin
Faust’s book “This Republic of Suffering,” “Death and the Civil
War” narrows its focus to examine the war’s impact -- including
tens of thousands of corpses left where they fell -- on our
national understanding of service, sacrifice and death itself.

“Death and the Civil War” airs Sept. 18 on PBS’s American
Experience at 8 p.m. New York time. Rating: ****